The rise of the WeChat applet is not only arrogant Apple, but also anxious domestic mobile phone brands.
On March 19th, the 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that millet, ZTE, Huawei, Jinli, Lenovo, Meizu, Nubia, OPPO, vivo nine mobile phone manufacturers will jointly launch fast application standards. Its purpose is to empower developers to expand Scene future, access in a standardized way.
'Quick application' is not new. As early as last year, Xiaomi introduced 'direct service' and Meizu also launched 'quick application'. They are similar to the WeChat applet. Users do not need to download and install it. Now, nine major The mainstream mobile phone manufacturers finally decided to huddle in an attempt to recapture the dominance of application distribution.
The reason is that the WeChat applet's full-scale outbreak in 2017 not only harvested all major application traffic, but also controlled the user portal. Prior to this, mobile phone traffic was imported by hardware vendors and Apple, and WeChat moved their cheese. Huawei, Xiaomi, Jinli and other brands interviewed in the 21st Century Business Herald reporter said that as a participating company, specific information is currently not convenient to disclose more. Vivo's relevant person in charge at the company's mobile phone conference revealed that within a year, Vivo The number of free installation applications on mobile phones is expected to exceed 5000, covering most applications.
However, for the hardware industry, this is a 'big thing'. 'China's mobile phone manufacturers should have joined forces to do something. It is good to be able to coalition. However, there must be a strong enough standard to promote it. The first is to See if the parties to the cooperation are united, and second, see if they can attract more development applications to participate.
Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of the China Mobile Alliance, told reporters in the 21st Century Business Herald that how to unite to promote the platform is very important.
Counterattack applet
The scale of the WeChat ecological chain continues to grow. Tencent's chairman and chief executive, Ma Huateng, revealed that during the Spring Festival, WeChat global monthly active users exceeded the one billion mark for the first time.
At the same time, public data shows that the number of users of the WeChat applets has increased explosively since April 2017. With the WeChat games represented by 'jump-jump' on the line, in December 2017, the total number of users of small programs reached 400 million.
At present, small programs have started investment promotion and commercialization is on the horizon. On the other hand, the strength of hardware manufacturers cannot be underestimated. The data shows that at the end of 2017, the total number of mobile broadband users (ie 3G and 4G users) of the three major operators in China was 1.13 billion. Even though the above nine manufacturers only have 60% market share, there are more than 600 million users.
A mobile phone industry official who declined to be named told 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the essence of fast application is actually to fight against small programs. Although there is no obvious data at present, it confirms that applets have impacted the application store, but hardware manufacturers must To prevent problems and avoid being marginalized. 'I'm still more optimistic about this alliance, APP can't be particularly heavy-weighted, and all applications are getting lighter and lighter. Fast application should be said to be a manufacturer's initiative to compete for WeChat. Market and earnings. '
From the perspective of user experience, there is almost no difference between fast applications and small programs. The competition between the two is very obvious. Fluency said that co-founder and CTO Hu Zheren said in an interview with a 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the current situation is a line. The upper flow is tight, and the offline is expensive. Whether it is a fast application or a small program, it is a product of a huge market demand. 'The Internet has developed to the present day. Enterprises with diversified entrances will also have certain inherent advantages. We are all bringing about new product forms. Keep an open attitude, because fluent user groups are spread across various product ecosystems. At the same time, the use of such lightweight applications is also very much in line with the fluency of products that speak English at any time and anywhere.
Delivery server
In the commercial market, there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. Even competitors such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo and other rivals have always been arrogant in competition, but they have achieved unanimously in rapid application.
This situation is largely determined by the business model of mobile phone manufacturers. Before WeChat became the only 'super APP', almost all mobile application vendors must rely on Apple's App Store and Android phone's application store to seek lower users. Get the cost. And the handset makers are close to melee with 'selling goods' and are busy maintaining the relationship between channels and suppliers.
'The previous mobile phone manufacturers have not seen it far enough, because the idea of thinking about hardware and software are completely different. Everyone knows that by making money from promoting downloads, mobile applications are very rational, and investors are no longer blindly burning money. In addition to chatter, volcanoes, quick hands, these short videos, and other applications that really invested in app stores, are not much. ' The aforementioned mobile phone industry sources who declined to be named revealed that another layer of revenue comes from game promotion, but Tencent Netease two After the home occupied more than 70% of the share, the promotion cost was also greatly reduced.
In particular, the growth of the WeChat ecosystem, mobile phone users only need to open the WeChat to be able to get basic services, whether it is a taxi, order meals, buy movie tickets, book airline hotels or mobile payment, all bypass the mobile phone manufacturer's application store.
Therefore, for handset manufacturers, there is an urgent need to find new ways of realizing, not just hardware revenue. The recent disclosure of the millet prospectus shows that in 2016, 79% of Xiaomi’s revenue composition came from hardware and 21% came from Internet service business. The net profit margin of the hardware business is only 2.8%, while the net profit margin of the Internet service business is over 40%.
At present, Xiaomi is planning to increase the proportion of income from Internet service business. In 2017, Xiaomi’s hardware business revenue is expected to account for 68.3% of revenue. It is estimated that by 2019, the proportion of Internet service business revenue will exceed hardware revenue.
However, there are no clear information on the operational details of fast applications. Industry analysts have analyzed that after covering enough scenes and traffic, the nine major manufacturers are expected to receive the corresponding advertising shares according to their own users. In addition, the development of their own platforms, there are also Help mobile phone manufacturers increase user stickiness and accumulate more data resources.
Defence of severity
The hardware business representatives are now, software services represent the future. This truth has been confirmed by technology giants such as Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. Only the transformation of mobile phone manufacturers is not easy. How do they get the favor of internet players?
A person responsible for the development of a tool application told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the limitations of fast application are similar to those of a small program. It is not as smooth as a native APP, and it is slow to load. It is not suitable for large apps. 'Small programs limit development package size. , Only one or two megabytes. At low frequencies, tools are more suitable for light applications.
In addition, it is particularly important that the applet relies on WeChat account and payment system, as long as a WeChat account is open. There is no ready-made account system for fast application, and the limitation may be larger than that of the applet. Especially for some needs The application of payment still can't go without WeChat.
In August of last year, disputes broke out between Huawei and Tencent. The reason is that the Magic mobile phone can automatically load addresses, weather, time and other information based on the user's WeChat chat content; call, and service information can also be prompted during shopping. These technologies are It is the result of in-depth research and development by Huawei and KTX, Gaode, Alipay, Ctrip and other APPs. However, these are all accused by Tencent as infringing the privacy of WeChat users.
Huawei does not consider itself infringing on the privacy rights of users, saying that only after users set up the company can the relevant data be collected. Although the two companies finally reached a settlement, this incident also exposed the 'information security' between mobile terminals and applications. problem.
According to Wang Yanhui, apart from external competition from WeChat and Apple, the success of the Nine brand's rapid application standards depends on how determined their alliance is. 'The small program WeChat has formed a complete ecosystem, regardless of the promotion. Subsidies, operations, training, all have invested a lot of manpower and material resources. Whether these companies can be turned into a rope, I think it is also very hanging. For example, to subsidize, who will send this subsidy? If not attracted to the head application , The platform will not have developers to play. '
For those who rely on traffic conversion transactions, there is another way out. The responsible person of Mushroom Street admitted in an interview with a reporter from the 21st Century Business Herald that although it is in-depth cooperation with WeChat, it does not exclude the cooperation of other channels. With users and traffic, the layout and development will be appropriate. 'Perhaps the amount of mobile phone manufacturers is not necessarily large, but one more choice is a good thing. Of course, the premise is that the platform experience is good enough.'
Whether this highly-regarded alliance can shake up the existing market structure remains of concern.